Pokemon, The Premier League: The Pallet Saga
by Aerial Ace
Summary: The Premier League takes place only once in 50 yrs. Ash and Pikachu; a boy from the real world, Aditya with no pokemon experience to begin with; Sayuri, a Pallet ranger with a Zoroark fight against all odds to be in the Pallet team. Will the three get in?
1. The Returning

Disclaimer:- Hello everyone! This is Aerial Ace, and my first fanfic is about Pokemon....which i don't own except the new characters in the later chapters. If I did own, I will never be writing this Fanfic.

_**The Returning**_

Ash returned to Pallet town, after participating in his latest Pokémon League, the Sinnoh League.

"Yeah!! We are at last at home, Pikachu!" he shouted. "Pika Pika!!" the electric mouse Pikachu replied with a smile on his face, perched on his trainer's shoulder. Ash looked at his pokemon, and smiled. "Our journey has at last finished and here we are where we begin our journey..." Pikachu nodded in agreement. "Piiikachuuu.."

Ash turned his gaze a hundred feet to the wooden gate in the south, which marked the beginning of his hometown, Pallet. Around a few months ago, he had left this place with Pikachu to tour the Sinnoh region. "We are finally home..." Ash looked down to the ground, as if recollecting the memories of his childhood, all those years back. "Chu...." Pikachu too began his own recollection. The first time he met Ash four years ago, the pokedex calling him stupid, as also the attack of the Spearow flock was still fresh in his mind.

Ash suddenly shouted, "We are finally home!" with closed fists in air, and startled Pikachu so much that the poor pokemon fell out of shoulder and landed with a thud on the ground. "Chaaa…" His trainer turned to look at him, and started running towards the gate. "Hey Pikachu, let's see if you can keep with my speed!" Ash told his pokemon, while simultaneously running towards the gate. "Pikachu!!" Pikachu answered excitedly, as he too started running after his trainer.

***

"Pikachu, why isn't anybody home?" Ash scratched his head in disbelief, as he stood in front of, if he was right, the door to his home. "Pika, Pikachu?" was the reply his electric mouse gave. After running continuously for 200 feet, all he wanted to do was slurp some ketchup. "Chu…"

Pikachu suddenly said, "Pika, Pika!" as he jumped onto Ash, then onto the roof of his house. "Hey where are you going?" Ash asked his buddy, as Pikachu simply gave another one of his 'Pika' and extended his hand and stretched out two stubby fingers, pointing to something. "Huh?" Ash turned in the direction Pikachu referred to, and saw a familiar farmhouse atop a small hillock in the distance; a single storied building with a staircase that extended from the base of the hillock on which it rested to its own entry door. Four huge blades of a windmill rotated periodically due to the clockwork on the first floor.

Ash smiled widely as he saw the familiar structure. "Of course, Pikachu! You are a genius!" he said, as he broke into a jog towards the structure. "Pikapi, chu!" shouted Pikachu, as it followed its trainer.

***

Ash and Pikachu were soon at the door of Professor Oak's lab cum residence. And panting! Ash was bent in his hip and was holding his knees and panting as if he had ventured into fresh atmosphere after a million years. "Pikachu, remind me not to get excited the next time we return from our adventure, okay?" he asked the yellow rodent.

"Pikachu pika chu chu…" Pikachu replied. Ash nodded in agreement. Pikachu broke into silent laughter filled with mischief when Ash turned to knock at the door. His trainer hardly knew that his pokemon had just cursed Oak's next 50 generations…..

Ash knocked the door, but surprisingly, it was not locked! The door was very close to its frame, making an impression that it was closed. The trainer sighed. "First, I run for almost ten minutes non-stop, then I climb this stupid hillock, and then I find that this door is-" Before he could complete, a shocking jolt of electricity ran through his body. When the attack finally stopped, Pikachu tackled in his stomach, and he fell down the hillock, landing with a thud.

Pikachu then turned and opened the door. He said in Pikachu tongue, "Man, Ash had been standing behind this door for five minutes without opening it and then had the nerve to waste time complaining…this was a correct lesson for him," and stepped into the house. Meanwhile, Ash got up and ran up the stairs without wasting another minute, as if understanding why his Pikachu did this to him.

The trainer again stood for sometime against the door. He had mixed feelings about opening the door, beyond which he knew stood his mom, Tracey and the grand old man of Kanto, Professor Oak. _Probably with a cake, getting ready to celebrate my loss in the Sinnoh League_, he thought. He just trembled when he remembered the worst loss in his trainer history. _No, 'The worst loss for any finalist in the history of any pokemon league,'_ he had heard the commentators speak.

"Should I even enter this place?" he thought to himself. He had the best chance of running away. Pikachu was not with him, he could just keep all his other pokeballs at the doorstep and run away; he could not afford to look in the eyes of those closest to him. The news of his humiliating defeat had been published in the front page of the newspapers throughout the nation. _Gosh, what must they be thinking of me?_

"Ugh, what am I thinking? Mom could die if I did not return!" And shaking away all doubts he opened the door.

***

Ash stepped inside the lab, and was surprised to find it deserted. "Now where is everybody?" he groaned, with his arms on his hips.

The living room with a huge sofa, a huge cupboard with huge books, and a huge screen of an LCD were all that he could see. No human, no cake, no decorations. Not even Pikachu. He shouted, "Are you guys playing some sort of game on me?" No answer came, but he heard his electric mouse's pikas and surely, Pikachu emerged from the passage to the kitchen, with a bottle of ketchup in his hand. Pikachu looked at Ash, raised his bottle in a sharing gesture and said, "Pi ka ka pi?"

Ash smiled, "Some things don't change, do they?" and scratched him behind the ear. "PiiiKAAaaaa…." Pikachu loved that.

"Say, Pikachu, did you see anyone when you went in the kitchen?"

Pikachu stopped licking the bottle. It had actually not seen anyone in the house! "Pikachu, Pi chu…" he said bluntly. His trainer appeared to be in deep thought. It just hoped he had not taken it negatively. "Pikachupi, chupi ka chu," Pikachu said. Ash replied, "Pikachu, I hope you are right. Let's just hope they do not desert me." He paused. "Hey, I think they may be in the next floor!" and ran towards the stairs in the next passage. Pikachu threw the bottle and followed pursuit.

He climbed the stairs, and kept his hand on the door knob of the floor, and without giving it an afterthought, twisted it and pushed the door inside. And…

"SURPRISE!!!!!

Ash and Pikachu were welcomed by none other than his mother and Professor Oak! There stood Delia Ketchum, a middle-aged woman, wearing a frock, a yellow undershirt and a sweater, and an evergreen smile that made Ash's day. Besides her stood the greatest authority on pokemon, Professor Oak in his trademark white shirt. " Mom?! Professor Oak?!" "Pikachu, piikaachuu??" said the trainer and his partner.

Delia threw her arms open, and her son ran straight into her arms. She embraced him tightly, he embraced her tighter; she replied by tightening her hug. Ash tightened too. The two simply stood like that for quite some time.

Meanwhile, Professor Oak had Pikachu perched on his shoulder. He asked, "So how are you doing, my old friend?" scratching the Pokémon's ear.

"Pikachuuuuuuuu…Pikachu!"

Oak laughed heartily. "I don't understand what you say, Pikachu. But I take that you are doing well, right?"

Pikachu simply looked away. "This old fart has spent his whole life studying pokemon, and he can't understand my speech? I have already cursed your next 50 generations, now make that 250!" he said in Pikachu tongue.

Oak sweat dropped. "Pikachu, I may not understand your speech, but it sounds as if you were rude to me…"

Now Pikachu sweat dropped.

Delia and her son broke away from their embrace. Delia now knelt down in front of her son, her hands on his shoulders, to have a better look at his face. Ash was crying; it had been a long time she had seen his face properly, let alone cry. Though he was around 14 years of age, his moist face looked the same as the face of the ten year old Ash. "Oh Ash, you look ten years old when you cry!"

Her son kept on crying silently. "Mom, you are right. I don't just seem to be a ten year old, I act like one, too." He looked at his mother's eyes, which reflected the worry that her face amplified. "I am…sorry. Not that I am worth it." He looked down again. "Thought I could be a Pokémon Master…huh. I couldn't even defeat the person whom I should not have lost to. What the commentator said is still echoing in my head." Now, he turned his head to the left. "I deserted you and went on my own journey. I destroyed all your hopes. Not only that, but the whole of Pallet's." He now turned his head to the right. "I was called the worst trainer to ever come to the finals! I lost my whole team, but Paul did not lose even a single pokemon!" Now, he turned up. "I am the most useless…." He stopped. He looked at both his mom and Oak, and was surprised that they were laughing in their cheeks. What annoyed him the most that even Pikachu was biting his lips! When Ash eyed him, he hid under Oak's shirt.

Ash lost his cool. "Pikachu, why the heck are you laughing?" The Pokémon Professor patted Pikachu and said, "Ash, if you are done with your neck exercises, let's eat something, shall we?" At that instant Delia and Pikachu started laughing at the top of their voices. Now, Ash was really pissed off; he shouted once more in anger, "Fine then," and turned behind to walk away. Instead, he bumped into someone and fell down. "Ugh.." he groaned, while the three people behind him roared with laughter.

"Ash, I came all the way from Sinnoh for the sole sake of meeting you, and when I finally come here, I find you trying to walk away? What kind of friend are you?" he heard the someone he bumped into say. He looked at the person. He was a boy in his late teens, with brown spiky hair, black half-sleeved shirt on his upper body and a pair of green, baggy trousers on his legs. "Gary!"

"The one and only," as the old rivals got up, smiling in appreciation.

"When did you enter?"

"When you were ranting about leaving this place!"

Ash felt embarrassed. "Well, just wait till I defeat you in another pokemon battle!" and enlarged Torterra's pokeball.

Gary simply stared at him. "Weren't you going to give up battling a few seconds ago?"

"Oh, well, I forgot…." And scratched his head.

"Ash, you really do act like a child sometimes, you know," He heard his mother say. Delia's son replied with a small laugh, "Yeah, I guess so…"

"Now, you go and change, while I bring something for you…." and she exited the room.

"Yeah, good bye, Mom," Ash sighed. While he still had the guilt of losing, he felt much lighter, now that he was with his friends. Meanwhile, Pikachu jumped on his head, feeling hot inside Oak's lab coat. _That old fart must be real cool_, he thought in Poketongue.

"Ash, you should have called your strongest pokemon for the final match." Ash may forget Pikachu's voice, but not this one. At the door, stood a young adult, wearing a green shirt, red shorts and his signature white headband. "Tracey!" Ash jumped up and stood in front of his friend from the Orange Archipelago, greeting him. "Tracey! Nice to meet you!" He looked at his green hair. "Weren't your hair black?" he asked scratching his own head in confusion.

"Well, I decided to have a little change." He put his arms on his waist and turned back, not willing to show off his huge grin to Ash. "You don't expect me to look at pokemon my whole life, do you?" The trainer somehow felt he had heard that one somewhere. He dismissed it and asked, "Well, what was wrong with my Sinnoh Team?"

"Well…" Tracey gulped at this question, as he had no sensible answer for that, and him advising a seasoned trainer would look silly. "You should have used your more experienced fighters for the match like sceptile, corphish, snorlax, heracross, and others, you know. I think you held back by not using them." Ash began to look down again in disbelief. _I did not expect Tracey to say that…. _Meanwhile Professor Oak shook his head. He remembered Tracey actually practicing in front of the mirror what to say when Ash reached Pallet. He was always bad at lightening things up and this was definitely his worst attempt. He looked at Gary hopefully and his grandson nodded, as if getting the signal.

Tracey's Pokemon Watcher senses told him that he had struck the wrong chord. _Crap! My hard work went down the drains! What do I do now? _"Hey Ash, it doesn't matter now. The good thing is that you know you tried your best, and tried your best. It's not your fault Paul was so strong…" Ash glanced at his friend and opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, Gary cut in, "Hey forget it now, guys. What happened cannot be changed…for now."

Gary turned to Ash. "You wanted a battle, right? Then I will give it to you," and held up a pokeball, "I have not been training for some time and am not in touch. So, it will be much easier for you to defeat me, and perhaps renew your confidence."

From the seriousness on his old rival's face, he could see that Gary was really genuinely serious, and it was something he could never fake. Ash shook his head. "Gary, I am happy that you want to battle me, but I don't want you to battle me out of sympathy." Gary knew this was going to be Ash's answer, as he had his own pride as a trainer, and lowered his pokeball.

Ash continued, eyeing Tracey with eyes narrowed, "I may have agreed with you, but I am sure that my pokemon were perfect for the job. I know it because I have raised them myself. It was me who left out somewhere…" He felt his stomach grumble softly. "I am feeling hungry. Let's go down. " With this, he started walking towards the door. Gary put his hand on Tracey's shoulder, and whispered in his ear, "What were you doing in front of the mirror exactly? Practicing your dialogues or thinking about having your body pierced for show off? The next time you feel giving words of encouragement to someone, come to me. I promise to feed you to my Blastoise!" Tracey gave a weak smile.

As the sulking trainer reached the door, he heard someone say, "three!" from the other side of the door, and the door burst open. "What the-" he began, but stopped and raised his eyebrows to the fullest extent as his eyes fixed themselves on the boy and girl who entered the room.

The boy was around 10 years of age, with a green shirt, dark shorts and his trademark thick glasses and hair leaning to one side. He essentially would have looked like a miniature Tracey without those specs. The girl was around two years his elder; she wore an orange sleeveless top, blue shorts and fingerless gloves. There was a green bandana tied around her hair, and two locks of hair lay dangling on either side of her face.

Both of them had huge smiles on their face.

"May…Max!!" He exclaimed, his tone rising with the last word.

May, the sweet little girl who they last saw at the Wallace cup, banged her foot on the ground, "Max, do you know something?"

"I am all ears, sis!"

"When I started my journey, I didn't know a thing about pokemon"

"Ya, that's why you told your Torchic to 'mushroom'."

"But three boys came forward, and taught me the ways of Pokémon. You know them, right?"

"Ash, Brock and…me?" He looked at his sister questioningly.

May smiled in agreement. "Yes, you too Max. Next, do you know the person who taught me how to catch pokemon?"

"Ash!"

"The one who once said, 'never give up', 'there is always the next day', 'hard work has no substitution'?"

"Ash!"

"Who was the one who saw the almost invisibly faint light emitted by a charmander's tail when in a cloud of Gastlies?"

"Ash!"

"Who was the one who was a total optimist even when confronted by a gaining Groudon?"

"Ash!"

And lastly, who was the one who taught us to always be focused on our goal, and the other things simply follow us?"

"That would be Brock!" May looked at Max questioningly. Max explained, "That man would run after girls and forget everything else. If he would run after everything else, the girls would run after him just like that!" and he snapped his finger to stress 'just like that'. May slapped her forehead.

Ash, Gary, and Tracey laughed their hearts out. Pikachu jumped on May's right shoulder, glad to have seen her after such a long time. Professor Oak smiled at the sight of the next generation of trainers gathered in front of him. B_etter leave them alone_, and exited the room quietly to see what Delia was doing.

For the next few minutes, the five youngsters chatted a lot. May and Max were introduced to Gary for the first time, Tracey showed some of his sketches to Max, and he wondered when he would be able to draw as well as him. Pikachu, on May's shoulder, was the first to notice that Oak had left the room.

"I choose you, Grovyle and Munchlax!" Max shouted, summoning his pokemon. It turned out that he had just started his journey to conquer the Hoenn League. His Wood Gecko pokemon and Big Eater pokemon materialized from their pokeballs. "Guys, meet Grovyle, my starter I received as a Treecko from Professor Birch."

"Grovyee.." Grovyle greeted the others.

"And this is Munchlax. Ash and Pikachu, you must be familiar with this Munchlax." He paused to see if they remembered or not. When Pikachu recognized him, he continued, "Ash, this was May's Munchlax first. It has since joined my team." Pikachu leaped from May's shoulder, and started conversing with its old friend. After some time, they were joined in by Grovyle. Meanwhile, Gary and Tracey congratulated Max on the way he had raised Grovyle.

May elaborated for him, "Well, you know how close Max and Munchlax were back when we travelled, right?" Ash nodded. "When Max went away to select his very first pokemon, Munchlax wrecked havoc in the Gym. He calmed down only when Max returned. Seeing how close they were, I decided to let Munchlax travel with him."

Ash got the details, but one thing struck him. "So you returned to Petalburg to see Max off?" Then, another thing struck him. "Hey, shouldn't you be at the Grand Festival in Johto right now?" he asked.

May agreed. _When did Ash become so intelligent?_ She looked away."My parents wanted me to be home to see him off. Right now, you are right, I should be at the Grand Festival. And Max should be at Mauville for his third Gym." Now, she turned to him. "But we thought it was more important to meet my best friend and Max's source of inspiration when he needed us the most." She smiled from ear to ear. "And you see, I was right after all. And about the Festival, I have a few days off before my next match, you know."

Ash couldn't do anything else but smile.

"Hey, come down, all you youngsters! We have a special surprise for you!" all of them heard Professor Oak say, and they dashed downstairs.

When everybody came, he motioned them to follow him. "Grandpa, is the lunch in the Corral?" Gary wondered. He, his Grandpa and Tracey had planned out the whole party, and Mrs. Ketchum had had made the whole lunch. But, with the arrival of May and Max, he was not exactly sure the Professor had been wholly truthful to him. His belief was confirmed when Oak replied, "Gary, there's something more…"

The group passed the kitchen, and into the study, before reaching the open door that lead to the Corral. Pikachu's sharp sense of smell caught an interesting scent, causing him to grin in happiness. It then ran out of the door. The remaining group followed him.

Mrs. Ketchum was already present as expected with the buffet she had promised. "Welcome to the buffet, kids," she spoke, "It's about time you came." The buffet was laid on a roughly rectangular table which Oak had lent just for this Buffet. There was space for ten humans to sit, four along each length and one along each breadth. Likewise, wooden chairs were kept along the table. "Thank you Mrs. Ketchum!" Gary, Tracey, May and Max exclaimed like obedient children. And "Thanks, mom!" Ash thanked her like an obedient son.

Without another word, Ash sat down at a corner and attacked the large Magikarp fry kept in front of him. Seeing his trainer got Pikachu excited, and dived into the 'Cater Pie' when Ash opened the lid. The others took their seats and helped themselves to the Land Sharpedo soup, the Krabphish fry, the roasted Mareep, and the staple rice balls.

"So, you guys ready?"

"pip-lup!"

"buneeary!"

"Mamooooo!"

"cynda!"

"chi-ppa!"

"Toke!"

Out of the blue, the earth started shaking with a rumbling noise. "What the-" went Tracey, as he was thrown out of the chair. The other stood up to avoid the same fate as Tracey. The rumbling sound was growing in a similar fashion to the stampeding of Ash's Tauros. "Over there!" Max pointed to the huge bulldozer charging right at them, his keen eyesight registering the image and instantly recognizing the pokemon from the many books he read. "That's a Mamoswine!

Ash observed the pokemon closely. It had a huge pair of tusks jutting below its nose; it was indeed a Mamoswine. And a Mamoswine could only mean one thing-"Dawn!"

"Pika!" Pikachu cried and leapt from the table in excitement.

Max was utterly confused. "What dawn? It's one o'clock!" No one paid attention to him.

"What? The one who thinks I am a poet!" Gary exclaimed.

"Dawn… the one who defeated me at the Wallace up, right?" May asked Ash, who nodded. She looked closely, and spotted a girl riding on the Mamoswine. _Hmm…the blue hair is unmistakable. It's indeed Dawn. _

"Piplup, use bubblebeam," Dawn ordered her starter and best friend, a small penguin with the most disproportionate head among all pokemon.

"Pip-lupluplupluplup!!" Piplup launched itself from the still running Mamoswine's head and launched an array of colorful bubbles into the air, through a glowing beak. Mamoswine slowed down after remembering what came next. "Nice job Piplup," Dawn caught her Piplup, who again made its beak glow for another attack. "Now Mamoswine, spin and use ice shard!" Keeping Piplup on the larger pokemon head, she jumped of Mamoswine.

"Mammooo!"

The Tusker stopped and started spinning, and launched several shards of glowing ice all around it from its mouth. As it continued doing this, Dawn took out three pokeballs. "Pachirisu, Buneary, and Cyndaquil, GO!" She did not order her pokemon what attack to use henceforth, as they already knew after a whole week of practice.

"Bunear….ryyy" Buneary shot an ice-cold beam from its mouth, which froze Piplup's bubblebeam attack. The Bubbles gained weight, and started falling down.

"Chi..Pa!" Pachirisu, the only other electric type ever owned by Ash's traveling companions, discharged white electricity from its twin pouches on its cheeks, and balanced the falling solidified bubbles in air. Its electric bolts literally danced in the space around it, thus making some bubbles fall down, while others jump higher than the others. This, combined with the rainbow-color of the solid bubbles made it a sight to behold.

Meanwhile, Mamoswine had completed making a huge igloo using its ice attacks, a perfect hemispherical cave, and it was still spinning, albeit more slowly. The igloo was closed everywhere, except at the top, for providing the pokemon space to spin, and a small opening at its side. It soon stopped spinning.

"Cynda…quill!" Cyndaquil's back burst into flames, which engulfed it own body. It curved into a wheel-like shape, dashed towards the small opening with a flame wheel attack, and entered the igloo. The flaming wheel moved in circles around the central Mamoswine. The ice acted like glass and refracted the light from Cyndaquil. With the smaller pokemon moving round and round, the light increasingly became redder as it approached nearer the opening, and increasingly dimmed as it move away from it. The alternate waxing and waning simply looked beautiful.

Dawn at last stepped in, giving the order, "Piplup, now use whirlpool!"

"-Lup!" Piplup released the stored energy as water from its glowing beak, which shot ten feet in the air, then expanded into a conical shape while simultaneously spinning like a vortex. It should have been classified as a real whirlpool only if it had been at a water body, but the attack was still called whirlpool. The makeshift whirlpool was as large as the igloo itself, and droplets of water fell off it as the water whirled around Piplup.

"Now Buneary, grab Pachirisu and Bounce into the whirlpool!" Dawn ordered next.

Pachirisu, who was still balancing the bubbles with its Discharge attack, was carefully lifted by Buneary, careful not shock itself, on its ears. It did this with such mastery that the pre-occupied Pachirisu could not feel a thing, and continued balancing. "Bunnee…" the rabbit crouched down, focused all its might into its little feet, while at the same time trying not to disturb Pachirisu, and "Reeee!!" it jumped about twenty feet in the air, right into the center of the whirlpool where the rotation was minimum, and floated on account of its light weight and added buoyancy of its woolly fur on its hips. All the while, Pachirisu _still _maintained its balance and consistently discharging its electricity, showing no sign of fatigue what-so-ever.

With a light revolving inside ice, its intensity changing with the passing second, and a whirlpool seemingly emerging from the ice, at the center of which white lightening danced with frozen balls of ice again, the tower of elements stunned everyone. The performance left everybody, human and Pokémon, young or old, mesmerized.

_Now, it's time for the icing on the cake. _Dawn took out another pokeball. "Togekiss, Shockwave!" she shouted, as yet another pokemon emerged from the pokeball. This pokemon was a flying type, the Togekiss. It had colorful shapes on it lower body, which would make it an ideal creature for toddlers to have, especially those with problems in remembering Geometrical shapes.

"Kissii--" went the bird without a neck and beak, and flew with it wings wide open and its body positioned in a vertical direction, as the Shockwave attack can only be launched horizontally, which was not its motive. It released a shockwave vertically when it reached the igloo, then took a turn around the whirlpool; released another shockwave, again vertically, beside the whirlpool; took another turn, and this time positioned itself right on top of the whirlpool, and released a 'MASSIVE' shockwave-the perfect icing on Dawn's cake of a hyper-performance.

"Whoaaa!" went Max, "That is absolutely marvelous!" Gary simply hung his lower jaw. May shook her head. _Man, she is far better than what I was at her level._ Tracey, who had never seen a contest performance before, fell down due to the captivating sight. Meanwhile, Pikachu was not at all surprised. Grovyle and Munchlax looked at each other; they asked Pikachu what he felt about the performance. Pikachu replied, "Oh, Ash, me and Brock were the one who suggested this combo, back when we were touring Sinnoh. Actually, we suggested it just a week and a half back." He grinned widely. "And you would not be shocked if you had known Dawn." Max's pokemon again looked at each other in surprise. The electric mouse continued, "But what does surprise me is that she mastered something as difficult as that in just one week."

Grovyle argued, "Hey, but that does not look that difficult."

Pikachu answered, "Well, you will see…"

Professor Oak and Delia were watching the view from the other end of the table. Oak asked Delia, "It's truly breath-taking, isn't it, Mrs. Ketchum?" Ash's mother did not say anything, but simply nodded. "Yes, it truly is breath-taking," she said after a second. The elder man observed her face closely; there was unmistakable evidence that there were huge droplets forming in her wide open eyes. _And smiling too._ It struck him that she was not looking at Dawn or her performance. Her eyes were locked on the single figure that was still sitting on the chair, who was now surrounded by his own friends, three of them from faraway lands. "Ash"

_So, the view of seeing Ash happy is breath-taking for her, not Dawn's stunt_. The emotional scene between the oblivious mother and son made him remember his own mother, whom he could never see except in photos. He thought, _Oh man, now I know why mothers are so important….Their hearts are always with their children. _He looked at the heavens, perhaps missing the person whom he had longed to see during his own childhood. "Your son has made some pretty good friends_, _Delia." Mrs. Ketchum looked at the person who she deemed as her father, though they were not related by blood. She beamed happily, the dam which held her tears finally broke. She replied, "He surely has, Professor Oak…"

Meanwhile, Togekiss had grown weary of using Shockwave, and tilted slightly due to fatigue. "Kiss…Tokii!" It fired one of its Shockwaves, and lost its balance. "Toke!!!" It shouted, as it went into the whirlpool, its wings tired of using an attack that its element was week against, non-stop. It crashed onto the dancing bubbles, got shocked by Pachirisu's Discharge and got knocked out. Pachirisu lost its balance as Togekiss's fainted form crashed on it, and both itself and Buneary got caught in the current of the vortex. Togekiss later joined in.

As for Piplup, things were going to get worst. Pachirisu was still using Discharge when it fell into the whirlpool, so the poor penguin got the worst shock of its life. "Pipluuuuup!!!" it cried out in agony, as the electricity coursed through its small body. "Mammo??" the Tusker wondered what happened. As it was partly Ground, the electricity unaffected it. But, the whirlpool crashed onto it, and it fainted instantly. "Mammmooooo!" Piplup, Buneary, Togekiss and Pachirisu crashed on Mamoswine with the whirlpool, who lost his balanced and crushed the igloo under his weight.

"Cynda??" the fire pokemon stopped in its tracks as water leaked through the igloo. The next instant, the igloo caved in. "Quill!!!" went the small pokemon, as the crushing weight of the Mamoswine flattened the pokemon.

Meanwhile, the others simply looked at what had just happened. "See what I mean?" Pikachu said with a smirk to Grovyle and Munchlax, who swallowed nervously.

***

For the next few hours, the guys simply enjoyed themselves. They lazed around eating the buffet, and it would have surely taken a lot of time to eat such a huge meal, even by the eight people already present.

Ash was the center of attraction with no doubt….He had even said that if losing was so much fun, he would continue to lose for the remainder of his life, and the others had thrown him to the shoe rack in the living room. Ash got up, learning his lesson. He dusted is shirt, and remembered an old friend who would have paralyzed him for life, had he said this in front of _her_.

He went to the study, and asked aloud, "Hey guys, why you didn't call Misty to the party? And Brock, too? The last time I came home, Misty was already here." "Pika, Pikachupi?" Pikachu asked them too. Oak, his mother, Tracey and Gary had a look of disappointment on their faces the moment he uttered the word 'Misty'.

May and Max uttered, "Oh, Misty…" as the image of the red-head sprang up from their memories. "The Cerulean City Gym Leader, I presume?" May asked. "Cerulean City….Gym Leader…" Dawn scratched her head for a while, trying to remember where she had heard the name, "Oh yeah! The one who gave that phony lure to you, right?" she said, remembering seeing the lure she saw when she caught Buizel, who would later be traded to Ash.

Ash got troubled on hearing the adjective 'phony' given to his best friend's lure. He glared at Dawn with the coldest eyes. "Dawn, don't dare you say phony to Misty's lure ever again," he said through a low pitched voice that sent shivers down Dawn's spine. "Yes sir!" she replied abruptly.

Then, Professor Oak spoke up, "Brock is in Pewter, he said he had some business to attend to. He will be coming later today." He looked at Gary, who shook his head. Oak took a deep breath. They had explained to Brock everything about the surprise party, and had given him the most important task of bringing Misty. _If Brock can't convince her, then it's no use_. He looked at Delia for support, and she nodded, signaling that there was no other choice. _Okay, its better to tell him now than to keep it hidden from him. _Before he could go on to tell, Tracey cut in, "Professor Oak, its almost five! You remember what is on TV at five, right?"

Oak said, "Of course! Its better to show than to tell," and proceeded to the passage that led to the living room. May, Max, Dawn, Gary, Tracey and Mrs. Ketchum went to the leaving room at once, leaving Ash alone with Pikachu. "Pika, pikka pi? Pikachu!" Pikachu asked him, climbing to his head. Ash did not understand what Pikachu said, but he and Pikachu thought very similarly, and his mouse was thinking exactly what he was thinking. "I don't know what they are hiding about Misty, Pikachu. I think whatever happened must have been really bad," and started walking towards the living room.

Out of the blue, the high pitched voice of his mother sounded from the living room. "Mother!" Ash shouted, as he kicked his heels to the living room. What he saw baffled him; his mother was up on the sofa in fright, May and Tracey had blocked Max's and Dawn's eyes with their hands, while Gary was near the TV with a remote in his hands. The TV was on, yet no channel was running.

Ash took a few steps further, and saw the source of the commotion with an open mouth and raised eyelids. Besides the door, lay Professor Oak, and on top of him lay a charred, black body of a six-foot tall man.

* * *

So This is the first chapter of my story. I know its pretty long, and if you hate reading long chapters, then pity me who had to write it!!

Ash's age is fourteen, as I think it took him a year at Kanto & Orange, another at Johto, another at Hoenn and the BF, and another at Sinnoh. So, if he was 10 at his debut, then he must be fourteen now.

And Ash's and Dawn's teams are those which have been depicted in the newest opening-The Greatest Everyday.

So, so long till the next chapter, which is going to take another week or so. Till then, good bye!!


	2. The New World

_**The New World**_

Aditya opened his eyes in the soft grass. His eyes were hurt by the sudden bright sunlight of the afternoon, and he raised his right hand to cover it. He felt his head ache as if it screamed. He shifted his right hand to his head, and sat up with his leg spread wide, with a tired look on his face.

He looked at his surroundings, and his facial expressions changed from tired to surprise. _Where am I?_ All around him was short grass, with quite some trees at a distance from him. As he got up, his legs ached for some reason. Ultimately, his feet gave way and he fell down to the ground on his butt. "Who cares?" he answered himself as he then spread out his legs again. Aditya then threw his upper body backwards to lie on the ground.

And he would have, if something had not come in between.  
---

Startled by feeling something incredibly soft, he quickly jumped up and turned back. What he saw surprised him to such an extent that he shouted at the top of his voice, "AAAAA!!" and fell down on the grass again.

Aditya was still on the ground, facing the supposed bug that was in front of him. The terrified that he was, he was also struck by the cuteness of the round black orbs on its head, which were apparently its eyes.

"Pie?" the bug looked at him with what looked like round eyes. The boy who it looked at was creeping behind slowly, and his hand found something that was hard, slender and rough to touch. _A stick!_ He grabbed it in his hands, and flung it towards the bug. "Eat this!" he shouted, and the stick struck the bug square on its face, sending it flying. _Yeah! Now, I better get going before more of those things come!_

Aditya got up and noticed his bag lying on the ground a few feet away. He jogged to his bag, bent down to grab his bag by its long shoulder strap which he hung around his neck. And the next thing that he felt was immense pain in his chest and weightlessness. Aditya looked on the ground below, and saw his six feet frame to be fifteen feet above the ground, and the bug which he had hit before fifteen feet below him.

"PIE!!!!" was the last word that he heard, as some strange liquid that the bug spat out covered not only his filled of vision, but also his whole body.  
---

The incredible pain in his chest awoke him up.

Aditya opened his eyes, but could see nothing but darkness. He made sure he was awake by closing his eyes and opening them again, and he confirmed to himself that he was indeed awake. After all, you are not supposed to see darkness after opening you eyes.

_Great, eyes are working, but what about my muscles? _He was sure he could feel his arms and legs, and hence went to the next step of moving them. However, this he could not do. He tried pulling his right hand, but it did not even budge. He did this to every limb of his body, but all with the same results; they were still. The only constant feeling was that the skin on his dorsal side stretched each time he flexed any muscle, but not the same for the skin on his ventral side. _That's right; I am bound by something at my back side._

He reaffirmed to himself that he was indeed awake and alive, and the worst part was that he was trapped in some sort of void!

_Okay, so a void with an adhesive wall like a fabric to which I am bound to. _"CRAP!! I AM GOING TO SUFFOCATE IN THIS CRAMPED PLACE!!!! HELP ME, ANYBODY!! AARRRGGHH!!!" He frantically tried to move his arms and legs, shaking the whole thing he was in. He knew he was seventeen, and had the experience and maturity to understand that he had to stop, but he just 'rampaged' with his bound arms and legs. Heck, even shaking his arms and legs was of no use, but he still did it.

After going insane for a few seconds, he finally calmed down. He relaxed when he understood it was not going to help. Till all this time in this nest, he had maintained his calm, because it was in his nature. But he had no clue what to do. In situations like this, there is not much to do. _Except one thing…_

He closed his eyes, not that keeping them open would have made a huge difference, and remembered what his mother once said to him, "In very difficult times, when there is no one with you, look again; there is always is Him," and would point towards the heavens. He soon spoke, "God, where the sweet HELL am I??"  
---

After hanging in the void doing nothing, and praying to God had somehow done the trick; he remembered the bug from before and the strange liquid that it had spat. _Well, it is logical to assume that this basket is actually that hardened liquid._ Back in his world, his friends would call him a 'scientist'. T_hat wasn't for nothing, was it?_

He knew from various examples in physics that hard substances were bound to be brittle, if an enough force was applied to them, for example glass. "I just have to smash this shell. And if I am correct, larvae of butterflies become pupae using a similar fluid, who hang by trees…so I must be hanging by some tree right now." He had to be correct, as the bug could not have pulled him too long. "If I just make it fall down, the impact with the ground may be enough to crack it. But the main problem is...I don't know which side is up…"

If gravity was acting on him, he would have obviously known. But now, its effect was completely negated by the damn adhesive that held him. _Damn!_

Just then, he smelled something in the air. The tasteless air in this vacant void now had begun to smell of his sweat. "Oh God! Where am I again?" He knew he had to get out of here, as the oxygen within the shell was becoming sparser.

Aditya felt his sweat trickle from his brow; the single drop of sweat had a soothing effect. With nothing else left to do, he decided to feel the path of the sweat down his face. With only one of his senses completely functioning, he concentrated on his sense of touch.

The sweat drop rolled down, clinging to his forehead, reached between his eyebrows, then rolled onto his nose. As there were not many obstacles on his nose, it again did what it was best at, flow down. Only this time, it flowed down quickly like a skater in an ice field, before clinging onto the skin of the tip of his nose. Then, it fell down, and splashed the floor of his nest. _Heh, that was amusing, watching the drop fall down…._ He quickly shot his eyes open. _The drop fell down! Down!! _

Having gathered the remaining information, he could successfully carry out his plan. _Because I did not know where the direction was, I had no way to tell which direction I was attached to! Now, I know how much force to apply…_ He concluded he was either attached at his back or at the opposite end, shaking once more confirmed that he was indeed attached at his back. He suddenly realized he could have known where he was attached by simply shaking, but then he would be shaking the whole nest and would have been difficult to tell.

So, concentrating all his might, he furiously oscillated the nest. First, it did not budge; but after a few more tries, it did. _Yes! The hold is growing weaker! Just a little bit more…._

He continued to pull and push, harder each time. The hold kept growing weaker, each time he pushed against the wall of the nest, which pushed the tree. Ultimately, his plan succeeded; the bark of the stem to which he was attached came off. "Whoa!!!!" Aditya shouted, as his personal capsule started falling towards the ground.

The capsule fell on one branch, and the teen felt a huge jerk. "One" he counted. The branch got pushed down, and the capsule went down again. "Two" Aditya counted, as he felt another jerk, possibly another branch. After a minute, he had counted till 'six' and he felt such a huge jerk, that the adhesive lost its hold on him, and he crashed on to the opposite end of the capsule. "YES!! I am free!" he shouted in delight, but groaned when he realized he could not move his arms and legs. And abdomen. _Not Again!_

Luckily for him, he heard the capsule cracking from the top. "Yeah! Fresh Air and Holy Sunlight!" he shouted, as fresh air gushed in and sunlight illuminated the capsule. Aditya turned his head backwards, and was surprised to see that there was not just one crack, but there were fractures throughout the capsule! Sure enough, the huge collision had caused considerable damage to this pod.

After a few more minutes, there were fissures everywhere; the capsule was broken in places and sun beam and oxygenated air flowed in and out of the many holes. Aditya just lay there, breathing in air in huge mouthfuls and nosefuls.

_If I use enough strength, I can break this damn thing…_ And he mustered up all the strength he had left within him, pulled his arms and legs, and jumped with full force out of the pod, and crashed straight onto land, head first. "I am free at last!" he stood up like a spring on his legs, as he felt the streamlines of the cool evening breeze flow onto his face, eyes closed, his nose and mouth and arms wide open.

He nodded, agreeing with himself that there was no such feeling as satisfying as freedom. _Even when I am in a place where I am hundred percent and damn sure I did not walk into. _His minute feeling of freedom disappeared like it was never there. He regained his normal posture as the teen whisked his attention to the current situation.

It was then he realized that his glasses were gone. _Damn. _The specs made him look more like a scientist, and he knew that studying had not been the reason for the glasses belonging to him. The reason, he knew, now had to be in his home, on his bed, which he had been spending time with before falling sleeping. Fortunately, he was not that much dependent on his glasses, his number being too small. Around him, there was a forest; his guess was correct. The grass was flowing like any other grass in the wind, there were a few trees around, not to mention the huge tree that was just behind him. _This must have been my host for some time. _He did not walk towards the tree, he was afraid something bad might happen.

Instead, he turned around and started walking in the opposite direction. He was not sure where to go, but definitely some place away from this forest, and especially that tree.

_BEEP!_

Aditya stopped. He whirled around at the sound. _Where did that come from? _Thinking as if he had just made some mistake, he shook his head, thinking it was his glorious imagination.

_BEEP!_

"That's it! It's not my imagination!" he exclaimed, and this time turned around, concentrating immensely to look for the location of the sound.

_BEEP!_

His ears informed him that the sound originated from the capsule that lay cracked on the ground now. He moaned. _Why that thing??_ He walked towards it and from a crack saw the thing which he had almost forgot. "My shoulder bag?" He punched the capsule for one more hole, and drew out the bag with utmost care not to touch the inner walls of the capsule. He had enough of that damn thing clinging to his body for a day.

_BEEP!_

He pulled the chain of his bag, and was utterly surprised to find his gaming console, the Nintendo DS, in his bag. This time, his stomach groaned. "What is this thing doing in my being? And why couldn't that beeping be of a burger?" he asked a rhetorical question, patting his stomach.

He remembered that he had been playing on his DS, with his Pokemon Platinum cartridge in the DS slot and his FireRed version in the GBA slot. He had just finished transferring his FireRed team onto his Platinum, captured them in Pal Park, and fallen asleep. _And when I get up, I find myself to be here. _He remembered his encounter with the vicious bug, which was too large for his size.

_How did I get here? __**Why**__ did I get here? Am I even alive? _His head was swirling with all sorts of questions. He just couldn't make sense of anything. Not that anything that had happened before made sense. _A fat bug? An unbreakable capsule made of its disgusting saliva? A dense forest? My DS? The Diamond Version? My bedroom? Asleep? _"God, if you don't answer my questions, I am going to go insane!"

_BEEP!_

He knew that his call would definitely fall on deaf ears, so he decided to respond to the beeps. He sat down on a nearby rock, and opened the DS. Immediately as it opened, the top screen went blue, the touch screen went white. A steady music, one that seemed to be played by beating drums, came from the handheld's speaker. Then, the top screen changed its color to white, and the bottom to blue, and black letters emerged from the top one. Aditya read aloud:

"_Congratulations! You have successfully entered the world of Pokémon!! You will meet your transferred pokemon shortly,"_

Suddenly the music stopped playing, both the screens went off, and the piece closed on its own.

The teen dropped down the DS, and took a few steps back in fright. The DS hit the ground. "I have successfully entered the world of pokemon? Why am I feeling not OK about it?" He eyed his DS with a constant stare, not taking his eyes off the thing for even an instant, as if it was a bomb. Now, his confusion had reached such an extent that it was intolerable; he was not sure if it made him angry or frightened. He took a few steps backwards again, lost his balance and bumped to the ground.

"Fearrrroooooowwww!!!!"

The already frightened Aditya found his heart in his throat when a huge bird – one he had never seen before – landed on top of the rock he had been sitting on a few seconds ago. The bird had dull brown plumage on its whole body with a huge wingspan. Its menacing eyes launched fear straight into his heart. _And it is not even looking at me. _

But the most terrifying thing about it was its beak. It was about as long as his lower arm, and sharpened to precision, and pushed the fear in his heart straight into his gut. The tension was a cake just waiting to be cut.

It was finally cut when the bird rolled his eyeballs and locked onto its prey. The human who had been standing in front of it just turned and ran. _A five-and-a-half-beak long human? A lot better than the five-beaked child and a certain yellow rat._ With a small hint of a smirk, the bird took off, hoping to avenge its lost pride.  
---

Two hours later….

Aditya was hiding in a small crevice that he found in a small hill in the forest. At least for now, he was away from the eyes of the mad, mad bird. The chase had continued for a few hours, until he had actually found this cleft in the mound. _Had I not found this damn cave, I would have been the bird's toast. _

The teen had his back against the wall, and his face turned to the left. He was in some sort of a sitting position as the wall was shaped in such a way. The crevice was so narrow that it was impossible to move his neck or even move his arms, but it still did the job of hiding him from the bird's eyes. _It's the second time within five hours I have actually been a zoo animal, not even like one…_

Aditya started doing what he was best at: thinking. He went through what he went through the hours before. _That bird was attacking me with glowing appendages!!_ Once, its wings glowed white as it descended, and would have struck him had a tree not come in between. Next, after another fifteen minutes of chase, its beak glowed, again white, and furiously started pecking him as it closed in on him. Again, luck had been on his side; he had tripped and fell over. _And over what?_, he thought as he moved his right hand over his stomach and wiped the blood trickling off the small opening from what would have been his T-shirt a few hours ago. _A living rock!_ 'Geo!!!' he heard the rock go, as it had turned to reveal a face, complete with eyes and a mouth. _Not to mention hands… _The bird hit the rock, and it itself got hurt. But, the rock flew back in recoil and slammed itself into his own stomach, tearing his shirt and giving him a gash. He shook his head, as he felt it was stupid to have got up to run away.

_Talk about bleeding, how many cuts have I got on my body? _He had to jump into a thorny bush back during the chase, with arms protecting his face. It had ruined his T-shirt. Also, one leg of his trek pants was reduced to half, and the other was somewhere between a boxer and an underwear. He was sure he had one cut on his neck which he could not remember how he got. Perhaps only his back was bare; but he already had a cut there due to a past operation. His face was rubbed against the wall constantly, and the cuts and bruises arose there, too. _That means the only 'virgin' areas on my body are my pubes and butt…_

His non-movable pivot joint in the neck gave him the relative advantage of looking outside for anything. When he would think the bird had given up, he would see a faint shadow on the ground from the small crevice. The shadow would grow smaller at its sides; it was definitely the shadow of the bird flapping its wings in flight. _But the last time that happened was about half an hour ago. _

Just then, his stomach groaned. "Man, I am hungry," he said in a low voice. He remembered seeing fruits on a tree outside, and he stressed his eyes to trace the tree again. The absence of glasses made it difficult. _Should I go out?_ _I think not…_

His stomach groaned again. And this time, it had groaned really loud, as if complaining about its emptiness. _Should I really go out?_ _I have not seen the shadow for some time_ _… _He convinced himself to take a few steps outside to make sure. After taking a step, a thought struck him. "Is the bird simply waiting patiently for me to come out?" he wondered almost silently.

His stomach let out the loudest groan in its history. That was enough to awake his sleeping irrational part. "That's it! The creature may be after me, but it is still a bird. It cannot be that intelligent. It must be munching onto that ugly bug I saw before, while I am here all hungry, smelly, bloody, AND black! That damn adhesive is still giving me a nice, warm hug!" He whispered loudly. "Also, I want to play on my Nintendo DS! I miss it!" He stopped, wondering why he had not thought about it before. His rational part awoke, "If that device somehow brought me here, it has to be the only way to get me out of here!"

He finally stepped out, noting mentally two missions for himself:

Get a full stomach.

Bring the DS back.

He hardly knew that the only thing he had got wrong were his priorities.  
___

The Fearow stood on the branch of a tree. It had been flying continuously for over an hour through the forest after the human, feeding on whom was now its main goal. That weakling had really been avoiding the inevitable; he simply scampered through the forest, intelligently running past trees to confuse him, and jumping over branches in the hopes that they would hit it.

It even had to go to the extent of using its attacks, but something or the other just kept on popping. When he understood fully well that it could not catch up to this human, it used Pursuit; but he made a fool out of him by jumping into a thorny tree. It had no other choice but to go through too, and its attack dissipated as it emerged out. Next, came a shock. The human had actually withstood the thorns and was hanging by a thornless branch! He then jumped down and started running again.

After some time, he used his Wing Attack to slash him then and there, but they had entered a denser area of the forest and had to stop the attack, otherwise it would have ended up chopping down all the trees.

After exiting the denser woods, there was relatively flat land. It tried to use Peck, but the boy tripped over a Geodude and fell over. Its beak hit the rock pokemon, causing damage to its main weapon. The human later ran away; and the Geodude turned out to be the leader among the rock pokemon. He refused to let it go to protect the human, who was now running again into the woods.

Now, it had tracked the human inside a crevice. There was no way he could escape now. He would be thinking that the bird would fly away after sometime after giving up. _Well, sorry to disappoint you, you miserable fool, but it is not every day that a defenseless human enters this forest._ _I have lost my pride many times because of your race and your captured pets. _

The Fearow had suffered many embarrassments in its life, twice due to a small human child and his Pikachu when he was a Spearow. It was contemptuous for him; his friends turned him down because of it. But, he rose through the ranks through pure hard work, eventually becoming a Fearow. They harassed the local Pidgey and Pidgeotto for pure enjoyment. But then, the boy came back, and this time it was his Pidgeot that defeated him. As if that was not enough, the boy actually tried to make him a captured pet. He was totally disgraced when another Fearow took over his flock.

But, he was not a loser, and hence grew stronger. He had his revenge when he killed the Pidgeot and its whole flock all by himself, and challenged the reigning Fearow for the leader's position. He defeated the leader rather easily, but the whole Spearow flock was not willing to accept him as their next leader. "You have become a killer," he had heard them say, "And we won't have a killer for a leader," and flew somewhere over the horizon. From then, he swore that he will have his revenge by killing at least one human, as the humans were the source of all his dilemmas. That itself became his only purpose.

After seeing the human in the crevice, he had the craving of using Drill Peck, but he also did not want to miss the sheer gratification of torturing the human to his death. He had been flying for some time, then landed on a tree and decided to play the human's own trick on himself again; by waiting for him to come out.

Right now, he had been sitting like that for half an hour. He was wise enough to know that the trick was nothing but patience. He closed his eyes, trying to calm the growing irritation within him. _Patience is a virtue. Only that can lead to my purpose. _

After a few more minutes, he was proved right; the man popped his head out of the crevice, then slowly his whole body, and began walking towards a fruit tree. The Fearow acted quickly; he opened his wings, kicked the branch with both his talons and took off. It then began rotating while flying, its sharp beak sticking out like a spear. "Drill Peck!!" he shouted, as it whirled towards the unsuspecting Aditya.

* * *

So, how was it, guys?

if you have read it, plz don't forget to review...


	3. Fearow vs Charizard

_**Fearow vs Charizard**_

About 2 miles away lay a familiar sight; a huge tree with drooping branches, a few rocks around it, a capsule broken into fragments, and some grass growing around. What was unfamiliar was a black, shiny, cuboidal thing which bore the letters 'Nintendo DS' on its top side.

Out of the blue, the DS started vibrating violently due to an invisible force. At first, the vibrations were unnoticeable, but increased as time passed by, and after a few seconds, the DS was literally dancing on its own accord, rotating, twisting, and rolling in all possible directions. Then, while still dancing, it opened, revealing the dual screens it carried.

The screens sprang to life, this time without music, with a bright white light. The light, though exceedingly bright, grew brighter. When it became brighter, a ball of energy erupted from the touch screen. The screen grew brighter again, and then another ball of right erupted from the touch screen. This continued till seven balls of light had erupted; the balls were now encircling the DS. The lights on the screen now dimmed, showing the letters:

'_Pokémon Transfer complete! They are scattered around Kanto and are all yours to retrieve! The pokeballs will be teleported to where ever you are. ' _

Then, the DS stopped dancing, and fell down. The seven balls of light encircling it shot in seven different directions; the largest of them flying in the direction of Aditya.  
---

"Feeaaaarrrrowwwwww!!!!"

The already alert Aditya did not have to hear the complete call to lunge forward in fright. "Crap!" He shouted, "That bird is actually intelligent!" The bird flew with so much force that the momentum of the air that it kicked made him roll. He instinctively sprang up on his feet. He saw a dark aura emanating from the bird, which propelled it towards him. He received a full-fledged tackle square on his chest, and was thrown a few feet into the air, and crash-landed on his back on the ground.

"Ugh…" he whimpered in pain, and rolled sideways, clutching his chest in pain, "My chest…" He bent his neck slightly and rolled his eyes onto his chest to have better look. The skin around his breast bone was ripped open. The cut was the biggest he had received till now, but still was not fatal. The attack was somehow not lethal; the only thing that it did was lowered Aditya's willpower. The red liquid which kept circulating in his body oozed out from the wound. He tried to wipe it, but it felt as if he had been stabbed just as he touched the wound. He gave up, loosened his muscles, and lied down on the ground. _Man, I have seriously lost some drive with this blood._

"row…Fearow!!!" He heard the bird say. The boy turned his attention to the bird; what it spoke now rang through his head. _Did that bird say Fearow_? He recalled what he had read on his DS, '_You have successfully entered the world of Pokémon'. _Also, he remembered seeing the bird's body parts glow when it attacked him. Suddenly, the answer was crystal clear.

The teen shouted to the bird, "You are a Fearow, right?" and slowly got up. Aditya could feel the confusion in his head; there were all sorts of confusions and questions that were completely meaningless. But, that he was in the Pokémon world was meaningless itself. That's because the world of Pokémon itself is totally pointless. _Pokémon is a series of games,_ he thought, _there is no way I can be in a game…_ But, he had seen the meaningless and unreal since earlier that day. But there was no way that could be true! But his wounds stated otherwise…

His thought process was cut when the Fearow screamed its name again, with a hoarse but high pitched voice. It began flapping its wings to and fro with such speed that they almost became invisible. "What now?" the teen shouted. The wings launched sharp pulses of waves through the air which hit Aditya before he had time to react. The first hit his stomach, and the wound opened more. He turned around in pain, but a second and a third pulse hit him on his back. Then, a fourth pulse hit his chest, and this time dead-on on his left rib. The fifth pulse hit his forehead; he fell down like a skittle. His whole body was throbbing with pain; he was amazed that he was still in one piece. _Why doesn't the bird simply end this? _

_Not until I am finished torturing you_, Fearow thought. It had waited long enough and wanted to drag it for eternity. The Beak pokemon opened its sharp beak, and summoned orange energy which formed a sphere in its mouth. Hyper Beam was the strongest attack it could use. If used at its full power, it could easily kill Aditya in the condition he was in now. But it had learned to control the amount of energy that it put into the beam. _Perhaps it will not kill him, just knock him unconscious. W_hen he was sure he had gathered enough energy, he launched it towards Aditya. The beam flew towards the human as pulses of destructive orange energy. _Eat this!_

Aditya saw the ball forming in Fearow's mouth, and knew what was going to happen. Instead of doing anything, he closed his eyes and waited for the energy to hit him. The boy had totally lost his will to live, he had suffered enough already. Normally, he would not have given up, as he knew there were people who were worried about him, who had set his hopes on him. But today, it was different. He was trapped in an alien world, with no one to worry about, nowhere to go, no pillar to lean on. He knew this was not a life he wished to lead. He was young, intelligent, and energetic; but it was of no use now. His energy and enthusiasm became nil without determination. Somebody had twisted his fate. Perhaps he was fated to die here itself. Perhaps that was why he was moved to this New World. He had so many hopes for his future, so many beautiful things, so many unaccomplished tasks, so many promises to keep, and a wedding to attend. Aditya imagined his family, the closest ones to his heart, whom he had caused a great deal of pointless trouble. Death was still an idiotic concept for him; he simply could not fathom someone pulling the strings, sitting at the backstage of his life. He prayed silently -

"_After a few seconds, I will be gone…Good bye, the world! Good bye mom, and sorry for all that I put you into! Good bye, dad! Promise I will be a good boy in my next birth! And I will be the best engineer there ever was, and you shall be proud of me! Good bye, sister! I am happy that you will be getting married in a few months. Just don't get divorced within a year, OK? Sorry I won't be coming for your big day. I am stuck in a game…Hail the great creator, Arceus, Oh lame excuse for a deity, just let that damn beam hit me!!!"_

He waited for a few more moments for the beam to hit, but the beam never hit him. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and was shocked at what stood in front of him. _Yet another creature!!!_ The creature was glowing white bipedal bird, with white legs reminiscent of an elephant, and two huge white wings, almost 7 feet from one end to the other, jutted from its white abdomen. Its head stood on a long, slender neck. Its white form continued into a long tail, which ended in a glowing fire of white energy.

Aditya could not understand if it was a friend or foe. _Is it here to save me or claim me as its food?_ With its back turned to him, two short horns on its head and wings with pointed tips made him seem like a devil. _Yes, a devil who wants to have me for food. But a devil does not glow white, does he?_ From the expression on Fearow's face, it looked as if it had seen Death itself.

The new beast turned his neck a full 180 degrees, and fixed its glowing eyes without pupils on the battered but functional body of the teen. A simple stare from the beast was enough to freeze Aditya with fear. But, there was something about its facial expression that made it seem to be on his side. "Go west," a voice came when the creature opened its mouth. The voice was terribly low pitched, and if he had heard right, was overflowing with anger. Aditya did as he was told; he crept behind with some feeling of uneasiness in its presence. Though it was more sensible to just run away from the two dueling monsters, he was not in the mental condition to do so. As he continued, a more detailing of the creature struck his eyes; _it has a mouth, not a beak_. Also, he could definitely see a pair of small arms that it had raised in a protective gesture. _Also, a bird is not supposed to have a flaming tail, and should have talons or claws, not elephantine legs._

All in all, the creature had six appendages; two wings, two arms and two legs, a mouth, two arms, and a rotund belly. It definitely looked more reptilian than avian. Also, its silhouette was something he could never forget; it was that of his favorite Pocket Monster and the evolution of the starter which he chose in his FireRed version. "Charizard!" He said, surprised. Someone seriously had to pull the strings from behind. Now, it would not make sense if someone did not. A pokemon, and that also his favorite one, coming at the eleventh hour had an absolute probability of zero. But it still did! "God, sometimes I can't help but love you…" he said silently. He could feel energy returning to him, and so did his zeal, and slowly got up on his feet. The injuries weighed him down, but he ignored them. _Charizard is definitely going to do something big…_

The glowing reptile began to lower his arms, and the glowing fire on his tail intensified steadily. It grew to a feet in height, then to three feet and finally to Charizard's full height of around seven feet. This unnatural white flame enveloped its creator. A single, glowing bonfire in between the bird at one end and the human at the other blinded them. The entire area was bathing in the white light, and the setting sun almost became invisible for the three organisms. Aditya shut his eyes tightly and ran into the forest to the west, thanking the Charizard silently. He would be oblivious to what would happen in the next few seconds.

"Fear, Fearow! Fearrroww!!" it threatened the new beast, one wing shielding its eyes. Fearow was really annoyed; it had waited too long for this moment, and now the human was running away. It had never seen a glowing pokemon before, and this one could withstand a Hyper Beam without even getting a scratch. Now, its glowing bonfire was too much. It closed its eyelids tightly, and decided to rely on its memory and other senses to fly to the human and kill him once and for all. Flapping its wings, it took off in the air, and flew towards the hill that Aditya had been earlier hiding, hoping to turn around and slaughter him without any delay.

But, it hardly could cross the crevice.

A colossal white beam of blazing, hot fire blasted from the bonfire, coursed through the air, and made a direct hit on the Fearow. The Beak Pokémon got blasted into the hill, creating a small crater. The hill was made of solid rock, yet the beam made a depression into it, and the sheer power of the beam forced the depression inwards, chipping out loose fragments on its way, melting solid rock and actually vaporizing the liquid lava. Pieces of rock, sediments, dust and gravel were launched into the air because of the jolts accompanying the attack, as they coursed through the inner layers of untouched soil, and the whole area was covered in a fog of dust in no time. The air-borne rocks simply disintegrated as they flew nearer to the beam, adding to the growing dust. The luckier ones landed with great momentum on the fruit trees, knocking them down. Shockwaves from the fire surged throughout the hill, cracking the large structure into smaller rocks and wearing even the larger rocks to dust. Some waves coursed through the air, and an abnormal wind began gaining velocity, making the smaller particulate matter flow through the air.

Between the solid rock at one side and the colossal beam on the other, lay the totally defenseless bird, throbbing, twitching, contracting, convulsing, as it got ignited alive by the beam, crushed against the rocky wall, and thrashed by the rocks that caved in. Its agony was definitely not a pleasant experience, as the beam pushed its fairly frail body deeper into the hill. Fatal blows are a rarity in the pokemon world; but this was indeed an exception. Even the tough Fearow failed to last against its power, and was burnt and chipped down bit by bit, simultaneously. Predictably, the beam reached the other end and completed making a hollow cavern, open in the north and south ends. The white fire shot out through the other end, but the Fearow was nowhere to be seen. The beam died out whole three seconds later, as if the Charizard did not want to take the minute chance of the Beak Pokémon escaping unscathed.

The newly created cavern did not last long. It soon caved in, and with it the whole structure of the hill.

Charizard dimmed his tail flame. Instead of its tail, his whole body began to glow brighter by the second. Slowly, the white energy engulfed him once more, and it shot through the sky towards north, leaving nothing but a black spot back on the ground.  
---

Aditya returned to the area as the dust cleared. He had been planning to heed the Flame Pokémon's advice, but a sudden hot wind spreading the dusty fog, combined with the sound of some structure falling down, and a white bullet shooting out of the fog is more than enough to grab just about anyone's attention.

Just a few minutes ago, there was a hill to his far right, a few trees laden with fruits to his far left. A Fearow was supposed to be standing directly opposite of his position. _And, a glowing Charizard with a bonfire for a tail was supposed to be blocking my view of the Fearow._

Instead, the Fearow disappeared into thin air; the trees had been broken off, and there were rocks all around; the hill was nothing but a mound of gravel, sand, dust and other debris. There was a hint of melted rocks on the mound. Most importantly, a dark circular patch was visible on the ground, roughly the exact place on which Charizard stood. No sign of life was visible within that area, except for one lone tree which was still standing.

Aditya walked towards the tree and broke three fruits from a branch nearest to him. _As a rule, I would have wondered what had happened, but it is all too obvious._ He sat down on the rock closest to him, and laid the fruits on his bag, which was his only accessory that was somehow not torn. The fruits were like a bunch of bananas, but were light pink with a tinge of lemon yellow. Their outer covering was tender, and seemed to be edible. The teen first wiped his hands with leaves from the same tree, and when they were clean enough, he pulled another leaf and cleaned the fruits off the dust. He picked up one fruit, and sunk his teeth into iy, tearing away half a fruit in one bite. "Hmm, at least this is good," he said.

While he was munching onto his second berry, something caught his eye. He turned to his right, and saw a heap of small, round objects. He kept his fruit back on his bag, reached for the balls using both his hands, and withdrew them once he had finished collecting all the balls. There were seven of the objects, and each object was as big as a golf-ball, half red and half white. They had a black boundary separating the two colors, and a small part of the boundary was raised into a circle. Each ball had a different symbol on its red part. One had the symbol of a fireball; the other had a blue drop of water. Likewise, the remaining had a lightning bolt, a bird's feather, a closed fist, a spider's nest. The last one had brown smudges that looked like mud, or dirt. Without thinking what they would stand for, he kept all of them in his bag.

Taking the remaining fruits and gulping them down, he spoke to himself, "Aditya, welcome to the world of Pokémon…"

---

"Hmm…Charizard was right. At least I know I am close to civilization," Aditya said to himself. He had been walking continuously for half an hour towards west as hinted by the glowing beast. He had finally arrived at a railing, which was definitely built by an intelligent being. "Dear owner of this land, I am sorry for trespassing private property, but I have no choice," he continued as he crossed the 4-feet railing.

After walking for some time again, he could see a one storey building across the huge landscape. "Whoopee!!! That's my final destination!!" The teen jumped in delight, happy for seeing a human settlement at last, and started sprinting across the landscape. He was feeling good for a really good reason, and swore to himself that he will never, ever go into a forest ever again. He continued running, trotting, hopping, skipping in happiness, till he abruptly stopped, gulped hard, turned around and started running yet again.

There were thirty reasons for him to do this. Those thirty reasons were doing their routine stampeding, moaning, "Taauuurooss," as they charged towards the human. "Bloody cattle! I never liked them!!" Aditya shouted, as he ran for his life. He turned to have a look at the mighty bulls with their horns towards him, and then continued running.

Out of the blue, a pair of green ropes bound themselves around him, and lifted him above the ground. "What the-"he began, but noticed that the Tauros passed by harmlessly. He looked at the ropes, and saw that they belonged to yet another Pokémon, which was standing under a tree. The pokemon was a yellow quadruped with a leaf on top of its head, which rested on a longish neck. "Bay Leef!!" it exclaimed happily, and began to pull the 17-year old towards itself. Aditya was about to thank it, but the injury on his stomach got the better on him. "Put me down, you filthy animal with a brain filled with poop!" he shouted. _Oh crap. What did I just say?_ He looked at the Bayleef, who was visibly angered by his comment. "Hehe…you look cute when you are angry…" he tried in vain. "Bay, bay!" the grass-type replied, and flung Aditya into the air. He thought, _Oh, you wonderful, beautiful human being, couldn't you have said something nicer? Now I am going to jump from the frying pan into the fire… _

Fortunately for him, he did not crash on to a rock or anything hard, but onto the stomach of a huge, sleeping pokemon. "This must be a Snorlax…" His body sunk deeper into the flab of the sleeping ugly, and then came to the surface. "Sleep well and nice meeting you!!" he said, as he carefully got off the sleeping pokemon. The short flight had made him dizzy, and the soft tummy of the huge pokemon was ideal for a bed. _Well, sleeping here will ensure that I never get up… _He looked around carefully to locate the building, and he was now closer to it than ever before.

This time, he walked instead of running, hoping to avoid doing anything hyper, or anything hyper happening to him. "Ugh…I don't know how much blood I may have lost, but I am getting really dizzy now…" _But I can't fall unconsciousness now! _He held onto the nearby trees for support, and kept on walking. After just a few seconds, he grew really tired, and sat down on a rock. "Okay, rest for just a few seconds. No use over exerting," he thought, as he withdrew a fruit from his bag, and started to eat it.

While eating, a head popped from between his legs. "Torkoal…" it said, looking at the person sitting on it. Aditya dropped the fruit he was eating, and sprang on his legs. The rock on which he was sitting sprouted a head, and later, four legs.

"So, are you a Torkoal?" Aditya asked the head, whose eyes were apparently closed.

"Torkoal…" It nodded, and opened its eyes to see the newcomer. When it saw the ugly, dark demon that smelled of blood and sweat and covered with nothing but underwear, it got the fright of his life. "TORKOAL!!!!!" He cried, and fired a huge flamethrower on the demon.

"NO!! I AM A FRIEND!!" Aditya shouted in his defense, and jumped to his side to avoid ending up like the Fearow. It worked, though the fire just hit him, burning the remainder of his shirt and trek pants, and was enough to launch him into the air, once more. "Not again…" he groaned while flying through the air, his body half burned, and instantly lost consciousness.

The blackish, burnt projectile crashed straight onto the TV antenna on the building's roof, uprooting it, and then skidded across the roof, positioned like a man standing erect. Aditya's limp form got trapped between the structure of a single blade of a windmill, upside down. The rotating blade moved the body down, thus making Aditya fall out of the blade, straight towards the door, beyond which stood an unsuspecting elderly person known throughout the world as the famous Professor Oak.  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


	4. The Pallet Ranger

_**The Pallet Ranger**_

"Capture Styler, go!" the 16 year old Pokemon Ranger shouted, as a disc shot out of her styler, leading a spiral line of blue light. The Capture Disc formed a spiral around the almost fainted Geodude. She watched the disc, as it completed a round around the pokemon. "Capture complete!" she exclaimed, when the disc returned to her Styler.

"Zroa..!" the monstrous dark-type smirked from the background. Zoroark, the monster fox pokemon with a wildest reddish mane, tied into a pony on its far back, walked to his trainer. He looked at the Geodude, whom he had defeated, and was barely conscious. "Hey Arkie, ask that rock what happened around this place, while I return to the capsule that we found." his partner told him. Taking a few weak steps, she broke into a trot, soon vanishing into the forest.

A treasure cove of evidences awaited both her and her Pokémon…  
---

"..Ark!" Zoroark obeyed his master's commands, and walked up to the Geodude in front of him. "Hey you…" he asked it in Poketongue, trying to look as threatening as possible, "You pebble, just start talking. I don't have patience, and my trainer doesn't have all day." He locked his eyes onto the Geodude, transmitting all his terror to the rock pokemon. _This is Leer!_

The Geodude quickly shut his own eyes. "You…you are not…at ALL…getting a thing…from me," the Geodude forced itself to reply, "Not after…you…r…merciless…assault! Do you understand, you freaking, POSING PONY?!" To any random person, the Monster Fox would have seemed scary. If it was anything that made him terrifying, it was not his built, but his eyes. Eyes with blue pupils bordered by red eyelashes stared at him. The dreadful look on Zoroark's face was magnified because of the location of his eye sockets in his skull. Leer made his eyes shine with a blue aura, adding to his terror.

Geodude looked from a corner of his shut left eye, and saw the blue ellipse of the Zoroark's iris staring right at him. "Oh Shit!!" the rock pokemon shouted dreadfully, and shut his eyes tightly. He turned back, rolled into a ball and shot out to escape using Roll Out. _When did that Posing Pony creep so much closer? Sorry Leader,_ he thought, _this massive Pokémon is too much! That Fearow was already a bore! _He rolled along for quite a distance without being obstructed, except for the occasional bumps. Escaping from the giant was so easy; he felt he was rolling into a trap. _What is that fiend planning to do?_

Zoroark shook his head, eyeing the hapless Rock Pokémon which was rolling away. "A Posing Pony? Sheesh," he wondered. _Now, a rock is calling my pony a fake one? Perhaps my species is really very, very little known. "_Hey, rolling stone, stop. NOW!!!" He concentrated all his energy onto his feet, bent down on all fours and shouted, "Quick Attack!" With unrealistic speed, he sped across the field, avoiding the unconscious Geodudes which had been defeated by him just a few seconds ago. In one second, he closed the gap between him and the escaping pokemon.

He screeched, "Metal Claw!" In the next split second, the steel hard claws scooped the rolling Geodude into the air. The Geodude was now flying in the air; he opened his eyes, and was amazed at the beauty of the evening sun…before falling down again. "Help me!" exclaimed the supposedly ill-fated pokemon. _Hey, I am a rock, _he thought,_ falling from this height cannot even dent me! That monster is all muscles and no brains!!_

Relatively luckily, or relatively unluckily, the rock felt a pair of claws catch itself. It opened its eyes, and saw the same blue iris staring at itself! Gulping hard, he shut his eyes yet again. He felt Zoroark's hand pulling him, then hurling him into the air. His small body slammed against a branch, and fell down.

"Ugh…I am NOT telling you anything! Just go away!" the rock pokemon shouted, lying by the roots of the tree.

"And may you be kind enough to tell me why are you not going to say?" The Monster Fox blankly asked.

"I am not answerable," Geodude replied, "to creatures I don't know. And definitely not to those who attack us for no reason. This is the second time such a thing has happened today." It was literally fighting against his slipping consciousness to keep its eyes open.

Zoroark smacked his head in boredom. He whispered to himself, "Man, this rock is really bugging me. Now I have some idea about facing stubborn opponents. Is it really _this_ tiresome?" He shook his head, remembering his amateur Zorua days. He simply never knew when to give up! _Is there a need to terrorize him some more? Perhaps just one more time._

He opened his mouth, simultaneously thinking of an attack to utilize, but Geodude started babbling just after seeing his open mouth. "Hey, are you insane? Don't you have any sense of pity?" He cried out, "Oh posi –I mean beautiful- Pony, you are too much stronger than me! You have already defeated me! There is no reason for you to incinerate me!" The poor Geodude was now reduced to tears. "And this has not been the first time this day! First, a human runs into this patch, then a Fearow attacks and seriously wounds our leader, and then a Pony like you shows up. There's a limit to what we can tolerate! Please leave us alone!"

"Fine," Zoroark closed his mouth. _After going through all this, he finally gives me the data I need._ He searched for something in his mane, and withdrew a few fruits. His mane was multipurpose. Apart from acting as a mobile storage space, it was like horse's saddle; his trainer had ridden on him by clutching his mane numerous times. "Here, take this Oran berry, it aids in restoring some health. And distribute the remaining ones to the others, and also to your injured leader."

Geodude looked questioningly at the Zoroark. "Why the hell are you being two sided?"

The Fox glared at him. "Do you want the berries or not?"

"No, I want them…" Geodude said weakly.

"Then gobble up. These are the last bunch I have. There is no way I can waste those, unless the situation demands it."

"…well, if that's it, then its fine with me," the rock pokemon stated, gobbling a fruit.

"Well, thanks for believing in me," Zoroark continued, "Consider it as a compensation for the damage I have caused." He got up

"No problem," the Geodude reassured him, now took the last bite off the berry. _Hmm, not a bad fruit!_

The Monster Fox got up. _Before this rock asks anything more, let me get lost from here_. The Geodude seeing this, asked loudly, "Hey, but why did you come here if it was not to fight us?"

Zoroark stopped short. He was amazed that Geodude caught his motion in spite of being injured, and busy in his gobbling up the fruit. He placed his foot on a log in front of him. _Now what __**or**__ rather how do I tell him? Oh yeah!_ "I am not answerable to strangers who attack ME for no reason. And definitely not to the ones who call me a pony." The Fox jumped over the log and sprinted off into the forest.  
---

Sayuri was utterly surprised at the black capsule, made up of some sticky substance. The whole area surrounding the capsule, starting from the large tree near it to the crumpled grass a few yards away, was littered with clues and hints, perhaps to a certain collapsed hill, a sandy fog, and a settlement of unsettled Geodude.

She had been sent by the Viridian City Ranger Union to the forest. She knew Viridian forest like the back of her hand, but never had she seen a capsule spacious enough for any average person to spend his life from the cradle to the grave. _What is this thing?_

The capsule was ruptured at all places, and it had a huge, gaping hole on its top side. Fragments due to the rupturing had fallen all around. She picked up one such large fragment with gloved hands. Through her encyclopedic knowledge gained through nothing but experience, she knew that it was nothing but the hardened String Shot attack of a bug Pokémon. "The volume of this capsule is twenty times that of an average Butterfree or a Beedrill. It's absolutely impossible for any of them to be this huge!" she concluded. There were records of Pokémon being abnormally big when compared to their average size, but twenty times larger? And for it to go unnoticed by her Zoroark? "No, it is impossible for it to go undetected with Arkie on my side. His nose is more powerful than an untrained Growlithe's. Of course, there are exceptions, like the idiotic Fearow, but still…" She chucked the fragment into a plastic zip lock bag, and buried it deep into her backpack. Confirming that her investigation was complete, she turned to look at the crumpled grass a few feet away.

The grass looked definitely crumpled. The patterns of the crumpled grass reminded her of the footprints human or pokemon. The steps of this organism had led her to a trail of broken branches, trees and other vegetation that had continued surprisingly deep into the forest, passing through a Geodude settlement that looked quite mad for some reason. "Was it because of this being?" she wondered. Her Zoroark, Arkie, had defeated the uncoordinated assault of the fifteen-something rock pokemon with little to no effort. _An uncoordinated attack from the most civilized Pokémon? It is something you don't see every day._

"That Geodude colony has always been a harmless one," the sixteen year old concluded, "Whatever was the creature, it was definitely not friendly." In the two years of her career, this area in the Viridian Forest was amongst the one that needed the least patrolling. Never once had she, or for that matter any of her Pokémon, registered any serious disturbance.

Two years ago, at the tender age of fourteen, Sayuri had graduated from the Ranger College in Viridian. She was chosen because of her Zoroark, for being a native of the Pallet, and 'for being efficient, resourceful, and ruthless at the same time,' as was printed on her Certificate of Merit. She was now qualified to be an Area ranger, but the actual assignment of areas was done after another test, an actual demonstration of your abilities that is tested by senior Rangers. After going through a rough exam, she was chosen to handle the area of the Viridian Forest and Pallet town, which gave her the advantage of being a 'Local Girl', she being well-versed with the geography and climate of the Viridian.

The Area Ranger began to search her bag for a very special device which was given only to higher Rangers. "Now, for the Pug Marker to do its thing…where is it? Oh yeah, got it!" she exclaimed, as she took out a handheld device, The Pug Marker, which opened like a laptop. The Pug Marker was a mobile database of the footprints of all the pokemon ever discovered, and displayed a 3-D image of the required pugmark. But what made this device more useful than the Ranger Browser was the camera fixed onto the back of the screen. The Pug Marker could analyze, store, and then recognize any footprint that the camera saw. It could also identify the magnetic waves of any magnet-based Pokémon, with the help of a sensor beneath the camera. Thus, there was no pokemon that could escape the memory of the device.

Sayuri analyzed a part crumpled grass, focusing the camera on it. To record a 3-D image, she moved in a circle around the grass, while taking care that the camera was still focused. The screen of the Pug Marker displayed the section of the grass in 3-D that the camera had finished analyzing. For a complete analysis of the print, it was necessary to hold the camera at a fixed angle for at least 3 seconds, without changing its height from the ground. For a very accurate image, the device should be moved around the object in a perfect circle of a constant radius and for whole 360 degrees. Holding anything in such a position for even a few minutes is quite tiresome, and only the top rangers can utilize the Pug Marker to its fullest extent. Hence, it is quite an achievement for a simple Area Ranger like Sayuri to master the utility of such a device

After a few minutes, Sayuri had finished analyzing whole 360 degrees around the crumpled grass. The screen had almost completed displaying the recorded foot print. "Hey," she exclaimed, "I don't remember seeing a footprint like that before. But I may be mistaken." When the print was completely displayed, the young ranger pressed the 'Search' button. The device searched its memory, and what the result it displayed utterly surprised her:

"_There is no record of the footprint of this pokemon._"

"What the HELL!" went the girl, "Just what the hell is this! A freaking large, unknown bug type with footprints like a humanoid pokemon bursts out of a shell and spreads chaos throughout the forest? Just what is this creature?" The young ranger supported her head in her confusion, as her eyes focused onto the footprint in front of her.

The whole situation had amazingly stumped her. She set into a silent thought process, trying to take her mind away from the result of the Pug Marker. _The shell is directly behind me. The footprint is directly in front of me. The distance between the footprint and the shell was around five meters. I have observed the area thoroughly, and there is no sign of any footprint in those five meters. So, did this weird creature jump only five meters? This sounds even more idiotic for a creature twenty times the size of a Butterfree._ She walked a few steps away from the site, to catch a larger view of the area, trying to make an imaginative overview of the whole situation.

"Okay," She began, "bugs hang by trees, so this capsule must have been hanging by this huge tree." She scanned the tree from roots to the apex. "After losing its hold, it must have fallen down, bumping with the branches before colliding with the ground. This explains the ruptures and fallen fragments on it." She started walking towards the center of the capsule and the footprint. Sayuri continued, "At this stage, the creature burst out of the capsule," and imagined a large Butterfree coming out of the capsule, "sprouted longish legs," picturing 'her' Butterfree sprouting legs of a man, "and landed on the grass five meters away, and ran into the forest," finally envisaging the Butterfree landing on the grass. She congratulated herself for developing a successful theory, before crying, "Nah!!"  
---

Zoroark stood amidst the settled dust. The area that he was observing had the scars of a rough battle.

'_What do a collapsed mound, destroyed vegetation, a capsule, a Fearow, a stubborn rock settlement, and a Nanab tree have in common?'_ He asked himself. _Answer: the scent of a Butterfree which reeks of human blood and sweat!_

He had followed a peculiar scent that had intrigued him back the first time he had seen the capsule, with Sayuri. The same he had experienced at the Geodude colony, after following the trail of destroyed vegetation. Though Sayuri had been following the vegetation, he had been following the scent. He followed the scent again, and it had led him to the place that they were ordered to investigate in the first place.

He had got his first lead when the Geodude mentioned a human and a Fearow. "Hey, but the Fearow's smell has seemingly vanished. And wait, what is this? A third scent?" he observed.

He jogged briskly into the mound, following the third odor. Once well into the mound, his senses were overwhelmed by the strength of the new smell that it made him sneeze. He blocked his nose and now used Agility to move around, relying on his eyes to analyze the area. The mass of loose rocks around him made it a little difficult to move around.

He came at a place where the loose rocks were replaced by bare land. He released his nose and panted slightly, while observing every shift in the pattern of the scents. First, the deduction from the scent pattern led to an initial hypothetical suspicion. _Hmm, why can't I still smell the Fearow?_ "Wait, what if it is just in this position that the scent is absent? Let me move around a bit," he said. Hence, he moved around.

With each step, his hypothetical suspicion was evolving into a fact. "No, I need to be a bit more confident…" the shocked Monster Fox concluded, "Till now, he had only been just looking around with my intuition, now I need to look for material evidence. There is no way that a Pokémon can die from another Pokémon's attack! Perhaps he is just buried inside!"

He then started with digging the mound and looking for the only evidence that was the Fearow's body. After a few minutes, he was done digging; but found no body. "Nn….no body…no Fearow…no odor…" he murmured. "A strong odor appearing out of nowhere…A Butterfree smelling of human…a human smelling of a Butterfree…Mon, this is getting complicated."

"How much powerful an attack can be? It destroyed a small hillock and charred _that_ Fearow to death? The Fearow, who gave me nightmares? I gotta find the pokemon with this attack, and tell Sayuri about all this." Zoroark wondered, and returned to his trainer's spot.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Whoosh.....the new chapter is up. The introduction of the three characters is over, and I am sorry: I won't be touching Misty's case for quite sometime.

In the next chapter, I will be dealing with the investigating skills of both Sayuri and Zoroark, and it is going to be awesome! So please R&R!!


End file.
